Seneca The Younger Once again prosperous and successful crime goes by the name of virtue; good men obey the bad, might is right and fear oppresses law.Hercules Furens (The Madness of Hercules), lines 251-253; (Amphitryon)

Seneca The Younger Unrighteous fortune seldom spares the highest worth; no one with safety can long front so frequent perils. Whom calamity oft passes by she finds at last.Hercules Furens (The Madness of Hercules), lines 325-328; (Megara).

Seneca The Younger Who vaunts his race, lauds what belongs to others. Alternate translation: He who boasts of his descent, praises the deeds of another (translator unknown).Hercules Furens (The Madness of Hercules), lines 340-341; (Lycus).

Seneca The Younger Of course, however, the living voice and the intimacy of a common life will help you more than the written word. You must go to the scene of action, first, because men put more faith in their eyes than in their ears, and second, because the way is long if one follows precepts, but short and helpful, if one follows patterns.Letter VI: On precepts and exemplars, line 5.

Seneca The Younger Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives and dies. It is just as possible for you to see in him a free-born man as for him to see in you a slave.Letter XLVII: On master and slave, line 10.

Seneca The Younger I do not trust my eyes to tell me what a man is: I have a better and more trustworthy light by which I can distinguish what is true from what is false: let the mind find out what is good for the mind.De Vita Beata (On the Happy Life): cap. 2, line 2

Seneca The Younger Has been attributed to Seneca since the 1990's (eg. Gregory K. Ericksen, (1999), Women entrepreneurs only: 12 women entrepreneurs tell the stories of their success, page ix.). Other books ascribe the saying to either Darrell K. Royal (former American football player, born 1924) or Elmer G. Letterman (Insurance salesman and writer, 1897-1982). However, it is unlikely either man originated the saying. A version that reads "He is lucky who realizes that luck is the point where preparation meets opportunity" can be found (unattributed) in the 1912 Youth's companion: Volume 86. The quote might be a distortion of the following passage by Seneca (who makes no mention of "luck" and is in fact quoting his friend Demetrius the Cynic):

"The best wrestler," he would say, "is not he who has learned thoroughly all the tricks and twists of the art, which are seldom met with in actual wrestling, but he who has well and carefully trained himself in one or two of them, and watches keenly for an opportunity of practising them." --- Seneca, On Benefits, vii. 1

Seneca The Younger Translation: The spirit in which a thing is given determines that in which the gift is acknowledged; it is the intention, not the face-value of the gift, that is weighed. Seneca the Younger, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, no. 81, sect. 6; translation from Tochi Omenukor Words of a Woman (New York: Writer's Club Press, 2002) p. 15.